


The Storyteller

by thelongcon (rainer76)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: 5:10 spoilers, Rick POV, gen with slash undertones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 22:12:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3398123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/thelongcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A snapshot from this week's episode - and that particular conversation around the campfire - between Rick and Daryl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Storyteller

Rick offers up pieces of himself.  He tears off bloody strips and holds the membrane out to their collective scrutiny, this memory for that emotion, this bandaid to their shivering hurts.  He’s not good at it.  Rick doesn’t have Hershel’s flair, or Shane’s gift for the gab, he’s no one’s version of a natural storyteller.  Rick’s torn off so many memories, mined the graveyard of his personal history that nothing’s left standing but the bare bones, the structural integrity of his beliefs. We’re going to get through this; we’re gonna survive, and we do it by believing _this_ and by acting like _that_.

These rare strips (his grandfather’s war stories) he offers up.  This raw meat they feed upon.  We tell ourselves we are the walking dead, Rick says, and they listen, under the guise of a thundering storm they soak up every word he offers, but he’s not expecting Daryl to choke on it, for his jaw to clench, or the firelight to catch in his eyes. “We ain’t them,” Daryl insists. There’s something defiant, almost _hurt_ in his rebuttal.  Daryl looks away unhappily.  He shifts to his haunches, balanced on the edge of his toes.

Rick’s watched him walk away constantly in the weeks since Beth has died, the familiar gait, the line of his profile vanishing into the underbrush.  It’s natural, the need to anchor him, to stop Daryl before he can move further away. Rick’s been wanting to do it for days now, curl a hand around Daryl’s bicep and say _wait, wait for me._

Thunder chases lightning, the wooden slats rattle against the wind, and Rick feels something drop.  Lori always said he was a shit talker.

Live every day believing you’re dead; he may have said.

Or: live every day believing you may die, he may have implied. 

And Rick can imagine Hershel’s wry smile. Don’t feel.  Don’t think.  Don’t cry.  Don’t smile.  Don’t _love_.

Just be _dead._  

 

***

 

It’s not anger thrumming though Daryl; maybe it’s closer to defiance or the lightning strike of disappointment, a near miss of static electricity that raises the hairs on Rick’s arms.

“We ain’t them,” Rick says hastily, and he holds firm, curling fingers around Daryl’s arm, holding him steady because the archer’s always been literal, plain to the facts – (dumb and uneducated, Daryl once said, but that ain’t the truth at all, just a different mindscape, and Rick needs to fix this and fix it quick) – “Hey.  We _ain’t_ them,” he agrees. 

Rick drops his own head, angles his face until Daryl’s forced to make eye contact, his voice so raw the honesty’s drip-drip-dripping all over the place.

It's their own kind of language, this body contact, and it works better than the treachery of words, the shifting alliance of interpretive meaning.

He could flip the sentence, say it the way Rick had _meant_ to say it, or the way Hershel would have done so instinctively - that anyone can die, it can happen at any time, and waking up every morning _knowing_ that doesn’t make Rick _feel_ dead; it makes him love all the harder.  He doesn’t take his people for granted. 

He doesn’t dismiss Daryl’s unease, and Rick might die in the next thirty minutes but he cherishes, feels, every second with these people, and _this_ man in particular.

Rick offers up pieces of himself, in words or actions. He flays open his soul.  These small moments of misinterpretation are worth correcting - worth fixing the moment they are made - for tomorrow is no sure thing.  “We ain’t them,” Daryl agrees, calmly, more decisive now.

The tension leaves his frame, his mouth curves into an uptick, and Rick bobs his head in acknowledgement, lets himself relax into the warmth of the firelight. 

Daryl shoulders his crossbow, still grieving, still letting himself feel it, and walks the perimeter, to guard against the dead. 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first thing I've written since dad's eulogy - so, apologies if it's scattershot - a little like me at present.


End file.
